Happy New Year! 2012 is going to be an exciting year for us here at Living the Dream, and we just wanted to take this time to share with you some of our exciting plans for the next year. Between an upcoming book launch, our travel goals, and major plans for this site we are going to be busy. The following are just a few of the major items we have in store for you this year, so sit back and enjoy the great content we have coming your way!A Book Launch in the Next Month!
If you have been following us on our Facebook Fan Page in the last month or so, you'll have read quite a bit about our upcoming book launch. If you have not then this may be news for you - our first book The Long-Term Traveler's Guide is launching in just a few short weeks!
Throughout the latter half of 2011 I've been busy toiling away in preparation for our first book release and have dropped off the radar quite a bit to complete it. The Long-Term Traveler's Guide is set to be the most comprehensive planning tool out there for anyone looking to take a long-term trip be it only a few weeks, months, or several years long. If you are planning to head off and see the world in 2012, 2013, or onward, this book is for you.
All topics for the planning process are covered in the guide and includes the following topics:
-Planning a Route
-Building a Budget and Saving for It
-Buying Luggage
-Developing a Packing List
-Finding Your Travel Style
-Visa Issues and Proof of Onward Travel
-Picking a Hotel vs Hostel
-Maintaining Budgets on the Road
-Finding the Best Food
-Securing a Job When You Get Home
...and dozens more!
Our book will initially launch in print as well as a comprehensive digital package with more tools built to make planning for your long-term adventure a breeze! Shortly after launch we will be working on formatting the book for Kindle and Nook reader devices, making a few iPod applications, and many more bonus features for those who own the digital package; all while working on securing a publishing deal. (If you know a publisher, please email us).
The launch of The Long-Term Traveler's Guide will be in just a few short weeks, and we'll be posting more information very soon with more information! We are waiting on the cover to be completed to order the first test print, and we'll have a firm launch date shortly thereafter. After launch we will be featuring a special 10 part series on all aspects of writing and self-publishing a travel book for those looking to do the same!
2012 Travel Outlook
If you may remember, we started 2011 out by getting engaged in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand. 2012 will be the year that Angie and I end our engagement and get married in May. We have come to you for help in the last few months on ideas for where we will go for our honeymoon with our limited two week vacation time this year and finally made our decision.
After countless searching and scratching out many of the world's best destinations, we've settled on one:
We're honeymooning in Spain!
Unlike traditional honeymoons, we will be quite active in our time abroad and hope to hit several cities including Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Seville, Granada, Valencia, Barcelona, and Montserrat. So if you have advice in regards to any of these places, let us know by commenting below! (Photo "Barcelona Spain" by pinzino)
Our other travel plans are staying loose right now to see how many days of work I can get off after that. I'll be going up to Northern Alberta, Canada for work several times this year and hope to get a few days off to explore the wilderness, the Northern Lights, and maybe go on a dog sled if I can find a way to do so. I suspect that after going up there, we'll be doing a long weekend in the Caribbean near the end of the year to relax.
Living the Dream to the Top 10
2012 will be the fourth complete year we've been blogging since opening in late 2008, and we will be celebrating our 500th post in the next few weeks!
In the last few years of blogging we have grown considerably from just a few readers per week to 10,000 - 15,000 unique visitors per month and rising fast. This past year our efforts have been focused on being placed in search engine traffic where we have broken into the Top 30 of all travel blogs in terms of Google traffic in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Our goal was to be placed for as many keywords as possible, and we have achieved it quite remarkably with it being our biggest contributor to our readership.
This upcoming year we will be bringing you the same great content as always, and we'll be focused on building up our presence in the travel community with more features special to the social media world of Twitter and Facebook, uploading our 20,000+ travel photos to Flickr, sharing our several days worth of video on YouTube, as well as hosting and writing many guest posts with our fellow bloggers. We're aiming to end the year with 50,000 unique visitors per month (or more) and several thousand followers on our Facebook community as we develop Living the Dream into one of the best travel blogs on the internet.
The Top 5 Posts of 2011 in Review
While we are underway getting ready for our plans for 2012, we wanted to look back on our Top 5 posts from 2011 that you may have missed! These are not only our most popular in terms of traffic and comments, but our favorite experiences and musings from traveling around this amazing world of ours. Check them out:
1) The Fine Art of Haggling - 5 Tricks You Should Use - I tried so many methods of haggling on the road to find out they didn't work. These are five that had the best results.
2) Unearthing the Catacombs in Paris - Eerie and unsettling, the catacombs are my kind of attraction, maybe because they cannot talk back.
3) Top 10 Murphy's Laws of Backpacking - The only truths of traveling are the ones you do not want to have happen to you, yet they happen all the time.
4) The Great Durian Quest Part 3 - Durian Fruit - I heard Durian was not pleasant, so I went on a quest to find it. From Durian Cream Puff to Durian Chendol and Durian Ice Cream, Part 3 of this series finally got me to try this interesting fruit.
5) Travel Souvenirs Collection Part 2 - Shot Glasses - I collect shot glasses, and after 34 countries realized I have quite an impressive collection. Check out the photos!
2011 was an awesome year here at Living the Dream, 2012 will be even better, and looking forward, 2013 will be the best yet with some of the plans we have in the works that we can't quite talk about yet. We'd love it if you stuck around and check out some of our nearly 500 posts from our experiences in 34 countries around the world and the rest that are upcoming in what is shaping up to be a great year!
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